How Does a Four-Year-Old Spend $46,000 a Month?

Model Linda Evangelista at an amfAR event during fashion week in Milan in 2009

Supermodel Linda Evangelista is asking French billionaire Francois Henri-Pinault for $46,000 a month in child support. He’s the father of Ms. Evangelista’s four-year-old son, Augustin James. And Ms. Evangelista argues that $46,000 is the minimum required to provide for young Augustin in the manner to which he has grown accustomed.

Readers outside New York are probably thinking: “What’s this kid eating ?!”

Readers in New York are thinking: “She should ask for more.”

To find out how a four-year-old could possibly burn through $46,000 a month in Manhattan, I called Natasha Pearl, president of Aston-Pearl, the New York-based lifestyle-management firm for wealthy families.